The US chamber of commerce's fiscal cliff website. Photograph: Chamber of commerce

As soon as the fiscal cliff started to loom before us, tax wonks got busy trying to quantify the horror that presumably lay ahead. It's one thing, after all, to say your taxes will jump. It's another to show, comma by blood-red comma, exactly how many more dollars will come out of your pocket.

As a result, there is a booming business in the cottage industry of creating tax calculators. BusinessWeek has a nice rundown on a few of them. But there are more, and dramatic, presentations out there.

The grandfather of all the policy calculators comes from the Tax Policy Center. It has a variety of adorable cartoon characters representing everyone from married, childless couples to single mothers to married elderly couples. The calculator also gives you the option to see your taxes under different scenarios, including "Senate Republican vs Senate Democratic" for those who are really ready to get into a partisan lather. Yesterday, Creditcards.com debuted its own fiscal cliff calculator, which is based on the interest-rate calculations of the Tax Policy Center.

There's a minimalist calculator that also has a certain simple appeal. The Tax Foundation has its My Tax Burden "tax policy calculator" (note avoidance of the words "fiscal cliff".)

If that's too unadorned for you, and you're looking for sheer drama, you might enjoy the barely suppressed panic at the US chamber of commerce site, which features a dramatic digital clock, hung with chains from Florida and New Mexico on a map of the United States – with blood-red borders all around. The Chamber also links to the Tax Foundation's tax calculator, with the calm and subtle advice to "CALCULATE YOUR POST-TAXMAGEDDON TAXES."

Leaving no visual stone unturned, the US chamber of commerce also has a whiteboard presentation. The camera-work and lighting are not likely to give Martin Scorsese a run for his money, but the video does make the chamber's position clear: keep corporate taxes low.

Once you've played around with every tax calculator out there, there's something even better you should be doing: pulling together your receipts and bills to prepare to actually file your taxes. The fiscal cliff won't change your tax bill this year, so get cracking.